Windows 95 OSR 2.5 CDs?

[drfsupercenter]

Hey guys,

I like to collect legit Microsoft operating system CDs - I have a collection from 95 no-OSR to Windows 8 (haven't bothered with 8.1 yet)

Especially since old ones are so cheap now. I got a boxed copy of Windows 98SE for like 10 bucks.

Now, I know OSR 2.5 came on CDs, as there's a CD on the FTP and I've seen ISOs on other sites as well.

Does anyone know what one of these looks like? I bought one labeled "With USB Support", as that's easy to spot from the disc - but I installed it in a VM and it was just OSR 2.1 with the USB additions. Additionally, I notice something odd about 2.5 - if I use the Windows 98 "CD-ROM setup boot disk", and just modify the directory it looks for from /WIN98 to /WIN95 - it will start the oemsetup.exe file and appear to be installing. But there are issues with it - like after the fdisk step, it makes you press enter at the menu again, 98 doesn't do that... and once it's copied to the hard drive, it magically loses the CD driver, and asks you to "insert disk 6" and "disk 18"... I don't even think OSR 2.5 was distributed on floppy disks, and since there's no CD driver there's really not much that can be done besides skipping the driver installations.

I'd just use the Windows 95 setup boot disk, but that CD driver doesn't work in VMWare. Nor does it have a "fast install" mode, you still have to fdisk/format yourself or just run oemsetup from the folder.

So my other question is - did OSR 2.5 have a boot floppy along with it? My OSR 2.1 did, but it didn't have the "fast setup" mode. It just gives you a choice of 4 CD-ROM drivers, or you can boot DOS without it. For Windows 98, it has 3 options - "install Windows 98 from CD-ROM", "Boot computer with CD support" or "boot computer without CD support" - the first option being the "all in one" fast method that does the fdisk/format bit for you.

[WinPC]

Most likely, Windows 95 OSR 2.5 shipped with the same version of the Microsoft Windows 95 Setup boot disk as Windows 95 OSR 2.1, infact, I even remember seeing the same disk being shipped with the copy of Windows 95 OSR 2.1 that I received myself.

Alternatively, you can just run FDISK manually, not to mention that there is nothing stopping you from running SETUP.EXE directly once you're finished partitioning the disk itself, since all that OEMSETUP.EXE really does is just automatically run FDISK and then execute SETUP.EXE from there.

I'd just use the Windows 95 setup boot disk, but that CD driver doesn't work in VMWare.

Personally, I recommend Microsoft Virtual PC for Windows 95 and Windows 98, since it works without any serious issues, not to mention that its hardware emulation is more accurate to the time period, and is not only more historically consistent but also handles the operating system itself with the least problems, whereas VMware Player, VMware Workstation, and Oracle VM VirtualBox are mostly designed for newer operating systems.

[drfsupercenter]

Most likely, Windows 95 OSR 2.5 shipped with the same version of the Microsoft Windows 95 Setup boot disk as Windows 95 OSR 2.1, infact, I even remember seeing the same disk being shipped with the copy of Windows 95 OSR 2.1 that I received myself.

Alternatively, you can just run FDISK manually, not to mention that there is nothing stopping you from running SETUP.EXE directly once you're finished partitioning the disk itself, since all that OEMSETUP.EXE really does is just automatically run FDISK and then execute SETUP.EXE from there.

I'd just use the Windows 95 setup boot disk, but that CD driver doesn't work in VMWare.

Personally, I recommend Microsoft Virtual PC for Windows 95 and Windows 98, since it works without any serious issues, not to mention that its hardware emulation is more accurate to the time period, and is not only more historically consistent but also handles the operating system itself with the least problems, whereas VMware Player, VMware Workstation, and Oracle VM VirtualBox are mostly designed for newer operating systems.

Yes, I know you can run them manually. But the startup disks lack FORMAT, which usually comes after FDISK. Or do you not actually need to format the volume? That seems rather odd to me.

My end goal, though, is to make a bootable CD ISO that can do a quick install of legacy operating systems. Even on my old Compaq machine with a Pentium 1, I've got a CD drive in there and the BIOS will boot from a CD, it seems really stupid to need a floppy disk just to boot a CD. I hacked up a disk using jo.sys and the official Windows 98 setup disk so you can essentially boot the CD, select "boot from CD drive", and it'll install. I also used the OEM setup configurations to pre-fill in the serial number, disable creating a startup disk, and so on.

So I was trying to get Windows 95 to work with a similar floppy disk image so I can do the same thing. Using MagicISO, it's really easy to just inject a floppy image into a non-bootable CD.

As far as VM engines go... I know VirtualBox won't work for Windows 95 due to the newer CPUs, but VMWare has specific support for it, it works quite well actually. And VMWare Tools makes it work a lot more smoothly than Virtual PC.

Edit:
I just tried it. You can't run setup without formatting, as I thought. It just says "you need ___MB free on drive C" and won't do anything. And those startup disks lack the "format" program, not sure why.

[WinPC]

As far as I know, FORMAT.COM exists on the Windows 95 and Windows 98 CD-ROMs, in the "WIN95" and "WIN98" folders. You could try that.

[drfsupercenter]

OK, so I just tried the ISO I got from the FTP. It was slightly larger than the one I had gotten from a different source, but suffers from the same problem.

Even if I run setup manually from the CD using a 98 boot disk, once it copies all its files and reboots, it loses the CD driver. So it asks me to insert disk 6 for the drivers, and I can only choose drives A or C, no D.

Windows 98 never had this problem. So I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to be doing with this. I recall trying to use Windows 95 OSR 2.5 on my actual Compaq machine and having the exact same problem on physical hardware. That one came with 95, but it was just OSR 2.1 with the USB additions - and Compaq has their own weird custom recovery CD that essentially just formats drive C and then unzips an archive to the root.

[WinPC]

OK, so I just tried the ISO I got from the FTP. It was slightly larger than the one I had gotten from a different source, but suffers from the same problem.

Even if I run setup manually from the CD using a 98 boot disk, once it copies all its files and reboots, it loses the CD driver. So it asks me to insert disk 6 for the drivers, and I can only choose drives A or C, no D.

Windows 98 never had this problem. So I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to be doing with this. I recall trying to use Windows 95 OSR 2.5 on my actual Compaq machine and having the exact same problem on physical hardware. That one came with 95, but it was just OSR 2.1 with the USB additions - and Compaq has their own weird custom recovery CD that essentially just formats drive C and then unzips an archive to the root.

All that you need to do, really, is to just copy the CD-ROM driver (OAKCDROM.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE) to the hard disk before running Setup, and then edit your files to include the following lines.

CONFIG.SYS:

Code: Select all

DEVICE=C:\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001

AUTOEXEC.BAT:

Code: Select all

MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001

Even if you forgot to carry out this procedure until after Setup has already restarted, you can still follow the same instructions so that Setup can continue to copy the files from there.

[drfsupercenter]

But my real question is, why doesn't this happen automatically? In Windows 98 it does. Given that setup runs from a CD-ROM, it seems like a huge oversight for Microsoft to not make it copy the CD driver to C... and it's like this in ALL releases of 95, you'd think by revision C they'd have fixed it!

[win98]

I have a Windows 95 CD shipped with a computer bought in April 1998 (but before 98 was released) which means it is more than likely OSR2.5 as that RTM'd in late 1997 as IIRC 95C was RTM'd in November 1997. written on the CD is Copyright 1981-1997 Microsoft Corporation All rights reserved. 1297 Part No. X03-50348. Excuse the terrible quality of the pic of the CD but it was taken with a cellphone camera and it's around midnight. The second photo shows what explorer says about the CD on my machine.

[878625670]

Windows 95 OSR 2.5 has IE4 installer in it.

[WinPC]

I have a Windows 95 CD shipped with a computer bought in April 1998 (but before 98 was released) which means it is more than likely OSR2.5 as that RTM'd in late 1997 as IIRC 95C was RTM'd in November 1997. written on the CD is Copyright 1981-1997 Microsoft Corporation All rights reserved. 1297 Part No. X03-50348. Excuse the terrible quality of the pic of the CD but it was taken with a cellphone camera and it's around midnight. The second photo shows what explorer says about the CD on my machine.

The CD-ROM that you mentioned is indeed Windows 95 OSR 2.5, since the file dates are November 27th, 1997.

Also, yes, Windows 95 OSR 2.5 not only included Internet Explorer 4.0 (with the Windows Desktop Update at that), but even installed it automatically at the end of Setup (this was achieved by replacing WELCOME.EXE with a version of IE4SETUP.EXE that presents itself as another portion of Windows 95 Setup).

[win98]

I have a Windows 95 CD shipped with a computer bought in April 1998 (but before 98 was released) which means it is more than likely OSR2.5 as that RTM'd in late 1997 as IIRC 95C was RTM'd in November 1997. written on the CD is Copyright 1981-1997 Microsoft Corporation All rights reserved. 1297 Part No. X03-50348. Excuse the terrible quality of the pic of the CD but it was taken with a cellphone camera and it's around midnight. The second photo shows what explorer says about the CD on my machine.

The CD-ROM that you mentioned is indeed Windows 95 OSR 2.5, since the file dates are November 27th, 1997.

Also, yes, Windows 95 OSR 2.5 not only included Internet Explorer 4.0 (with the Windows Desktop Update at that), but even installed it automatically at the end of Setup (this was achieved by replacing WELCOME.EXE with a version of IE4SETUP.EXE that presents itself as another portion of Windows 95 Setup).

It definitely does that too although the last few times I've installed it - albeit on faster systems than I used to run it on which is the only difference I can think of other than the time / date, IE4 Setup breaks installing real player requiring a reboot of the machine and a re running of the IE4SETUP.EXE that's on the disc to finish installing properly.

[RentedMule]

copy the cabs files to say, c:\windows\cabs after the initial run. When it asks for Disk 6 or whatever, point it to that directory

[drfsupercenter]

I have a Windows 95 CD shipped with a computer bought in April 1998 (but before 98 was released) which means it is more than likely OSR2.5 as that RTM'd in late 1997 as IIRC 95C was RTM'd in November 1997. written on the CD is Copyright 1981-1997 Microsoft Corporation All rights reserved. 1297 Part No. X03-50348. Excuse the terrible quality of the pic of the CD but it was taken with a cellphone camera and it's around midnight. The second photo shows what explorer says about the CD on my machine.

Thanks for the picture, that's very helpful. I managed to spot a couple on eBay with the same part number.

Did yours come with a boot floppy by chance or was it just the CD? It's really weird, as I've seen a few OSR 2.5's on eBay that are still in sealed packages from the manufacturer and don't include a floppy disk. So I'm really not sure how exactly they were expecting you to use the CD if you needed to reinstall Windows.


As far as copying the cabs goes... I could do that, but again... how was one SUPPOSED to install the OS without needing any trickery? Or was the entire thing just broken and nobody was able to do it? I'm sure there's something I'm missing, I can't picture that every single person who tried to install Windows 95 from a CD had to do a bunch of hacking around with files just to overcome some stupidity in the installer.

I also never got the IE4 welcome screen either, so something is really messed up. I'm using the ISO from the FTP, but just with a Windows 98 install floppy and manually running the setup files. Whether I use OEMSETUP or do fdisk/format/setup, the same thing happens.

If there wasn't any difference between OSR 2.5's setup floppy (if one even existed) and the one for OSR 2.1, then I'll just buy the CD only (they're like $10) and not worry about it, as I did get a sealed Dell OEM package that had 2.1 and came with a floppy. I just find it odd, since unlike 98, there isn't an option to just quick-start the setup, nor does the disk contain FORMAT so it's really hard to get it to work unless you know what you're doing

[WinPC]

But my real question is, why doesn't this happen automatically? In Windows 98 it does. Given that setup runs from a CD-ROM, it seems like a huge oversight for Microsoft to not make it copy the CD driver to C... and it's like this in ALL releases of 95, you'd think by revision C they'd have fixed it!

As far as I know, OAKCDROM.SYS was not included in Windows 95 except for certain bootable Windows 95 CD-ROMs, and even then, only when booting from the CD-ROMs themselves. Also, the Windows 95 boot disk did not include the OAKCDROM.SYS either.

The OAKCDROM.SYS driver was first added during the development of "Memphis" (later Windows 98), which is also why it is included in the "Windows 98 Startup Disk".

[drfsupercenter]

But my real question is, why doesn't this happen automatically? In Windows 98 it does. Given that setup runs from a CD-ROM, it seems like a huge oversight for Microsoft to not make it copy the CD driver to C... and it's like this in ALL releases of 95, you'd think by revision C they'd have fixed it!

As far as I know, OAKCDROM.SYS was not included in Windows 95 except for certain bootable Windows 95 CD-ROMs, and even then, only when booting from the CD-ROMs themselves. Also, the Windows 95 boot disk did not include the OAKCDROM.SYS either.

The OAKCDROM.SYS driver was first added during the development of "Memphis" (later Windows 98), which is also why it is included in the "Windows 98 Startup Disk".

I'm definitely familiar with OAKCDROM, but I didn't realize it wasn't around for Windows 95.

I was able to use my boot disk on real hardware - even though I had a Sony IDE DVD-ROM drive in it, the NEC driver (I think it was NEC) worked fine. However, I cannot get it to work in VMs, it just doesn't recognize the virtual CD-ROM drive.

What I am trying to do is actually make a bootable CD-ROM by integrating the floppy image into the CD ISO... were there ever official Windows 9x bootable images? I've got quite a few retail and OEM copies of 95, 98, 98SE and Millennium and none of them are bootable at all, Windows 2000 was the first one that was. (NT4 might have been as well, I forget)

Say you were installing Windows 95 on actual hardware that was compatible with one of the drivers included in the setup disk (NEC, Samsung, Toshiba, I think?)
Would it not have that problem I'm describing as those drivers get copied to drive C upon installation? Like - is the problem due to the fact that I am using OAKCDROM from a floppy image and it doesn't get copied to the hard drive when Windows copies files? If that's the case, it might be possible to do some switcheroos in the images (e.g. use the official 95 floppy, but replace the NEC .sys with OAKCDROM and do the same on the CD)

[WinPC]

Say you were installing Windows 95 on actual hardware that was compatible with one of the drivers included in the setup disk (NEC, Samsung, Toshiba, I think?)
Would it not have that problem I'm describing as those drivers get copied to drive C upon installation? Like - is the problem due to the fact that I am using OAKCDROM from a floppy image and it doesn't get copied to the hard drive when Windows copies files? If that's the case, it might be possible to do some switcheroos in the images (e.g. use the official 95 floppy, but replace the NEC .sys with OAKCDROM and do the same on the CD)

The OAKCDROM.SYS driver is simply a generic IDE driver, and will work on virtually all IDE drives.

Windows 95 does not install any real mode ATAPI CD-ROM drivers (not even OAKCDROM.SYS). Instead, you will have to copy the files (OAKCDROM.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE) to the hard disk first (as well as making changes to the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT), before Setup is run. You could easily create a batch script that automatically copies the proper files to the hard disk after running FDISK and before running Setup.

To save you the trouble, I have decided to post it here:

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF
CLS
IF EXIST A:\TEST.DSK GOTO :FORMAT
ECHO ==== >C:\HDD.TST
IF NOT EXIST C:\HDD.TST GOTO :FDISK

:SETUP
DEL C:\HDD.TST
COPY A:\CONFIG.NEW C:\CONFIG.SYS
COPY A:\AUTOEXEC.NEW C:\AUTOEXEC.NEW
COPY A:\OAKCDROM.SYS C:\OAKCDROM.SYS
COPY A:\MSCDEX.EXE C:\MSCDEX.EXE
COPY A:\AUTOEXEC.NW2 C:\AUTOEXEC.NW2
COPY A:\SETUPDSK.BAT C:\SETUPDSK.BAT

:FILECOPYBEGIN
CLS
ECHO Setup will now restart your computer to begin the file copy phase. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to continue...
PAUSE >NUL
GOTO : FILECOPYBEGIN

:FDISK
FDISK
ECHO ==== >A:\TEST.DSK

:RESTART
CLS
ECHO Setup must restart your system to continue. Remove any disks from your floppy disk drives. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to continue...
PAUSE >NUL
GOTO :RESTART

:FORMAT
FORMAT C: /S

GOTO :SETUP

:END
CLS

The CONFIG.NEW file will look like this:

Code: Select all

DEVICE=C:\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001

The AUTOEXEC.NEW file will look like this:

Code: Select all

MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001
SETUPDSK.BAT

The AUTOEXEC.NW2 file will look like this:

Code: Select all

MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001

The SETUPDSK.BAT file will look like this:

Code: Select all

DEL C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
REN AUTOEXEC.NW2 AUTOEXEC.BAT
Z:
Y:
X:
W:
V:
U:
T:
S:
R:
Q:
P:
O:
N:
M:
L:
K:
J:
I:
H:
G:
F:
E:
D:
CLS
CD\WIN95
CD\WIN96
CD\WIN97
CD\WIN98
CD\WIN99
CLS
SETUP

You can try using the files that I provided here, which automate the partitioning of hard disks while at the same time also copying the CD-ROM driver to the hard disk itself and even restarting the system from the hard disk and continuing from there.

NOTE: If your hard disk is already partitioned, the hard disk partitioning and format procedures will be automatically skipped.

[RentedMule]

As far as copying the cabs goes... I could do that, but again... how was one SUPPOSED to install the OS without needing any trickery?

And this was a real pain that I, and many others, dealt with back when we used this on real hardware. The cab copying was the first thing we did. Windows just didn't have a lot of CDrom drivers prepackaged with it. As a matter of fact, I never came across a system that had a CDrom drive it did recognize by itself. Most of the time, your drive came with a "driver floppy" that had mscdex.exe and an appropriate driver for the drive. Once oakcdrom.sys came around, it was a godsend.

[drfsupercenter]

Say you were installing Windows 95 on actual hardware that was compatible with one of the drivers included in the setup disk (NEC, Samsung, Toshiba, I think?)
Would it not have that problem I'm describing as those drivers get copied to drive C upon installation? Like - is the problem due to the fact that I am using OAKCDROM from a floppy image and it doesn't get copied to the hard drive when Windows copies files? If that's the case, it might be possible to do some switcheroos in the images (e.g. use the official 95 floppy, but replace the NEC .sys with OAKCDROM and do the same on the CD)

The OAKCDROM.SYS driver is simply a generic IDE driver, and will work on virtually all IDE drives.

Windows 95 does not install any real mode ATAPI CD-ROM drivers (not even OAKCDROM.SYS). Instead, you will have to copy the files (OAKCDROM.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE) to the hard disk first (as well as making changes to the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT), before Setup is run. You could easily create a batch script that automatically copies the proper files to the hard disk after running FDISK and before running Setup.

So... how was that supposed to work? You're copying files from a CD (with a driver you loaded from a floppy disk) - then it tells you to remove the floppy before rebooting. It then tries to find the installation files on a drive with no drivers loaded for it. That seems really stupid and I'm surprised Microsoft would do something like that.

I wonder if it's possible to make a batch script that essentially does what OEMSETUP does, only copies the CD drivers as well.

[WinPC]

Say you were installing Windows 95 on actual hardware that was compatible with one of the drivers included in the setup disk (NEC, Samsung, Toshiba, I think?)
Would it not have that problem I'm describing as those drivers get copied to drive C upon installation? Like - is the problem due to the fact that I am using OAKCDROM from a floppy image and it doesn't get copied to the hard drive when Windows copies files? If that's the case, it might be possible to do some switcheroos in the images (e.g. use the official 95 floppy, but replace the NEC .sys with OAKCDROM and do the same on the CD)

The OAKCDROM.SYS driver is simply a generic IDE driver, and will work on virtually all IDE drives.

Windows 95 does not install any real mode ATAPI CD-ROM drivers (not even OAKCDROM.SYS). Instead, you will have to copy the files (OAKCDROM.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE) to the hard disk first (as well as making changes to the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT), before Setup is run. You could easily create a batch script that automatically copies the proper files to the hard disk after running FDISK and before running Setup.

So... how was that supposed to work? You're copying files from a CD (with a driver you loaded from a floppy disk) - then it tells you to remove the floppy before rebooting. It then tries to find the installation files on a drive with no drivers loaded for it. That seems really stupid and I'm surprised Microsoft would do something like that.

I wonder if it's possible to make a batch script that essentially does what OEMSETUP does, only copies the CD drivers as well.

The batch script was just something that I wrote myself to automate the process in case you wanted to use it yourself. If you would actually read the lists, you will see that it copies the files OAKCDROM.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE to the hard disk and then instructs the user to restart from there, at which point it proceeds to load Windows 95 Setup.

[drfsupercenter]

Well yeah, I gathered that much.

For your long search of drive letters - I actually modified the FINDCD program from 98's setup disk to look for /WIN95 instead of /WIN98 so that actually works. I was able to get everything to install perfectly (using oemsetup) except the CD driver.

So, what I could actually see doing is modifying the autoexec of the floppy image (which will later become the bootable portion of the CD) so that it does what oemsetup does, but copies the CD drivers in the meantime.

I'm very confused though. As a test, I took my known-to-work Windows 98 SE bootable disc (I literally just plopped the boot floppy in as the bootable CD part) and ran the installer. Let it do all its stuff, and then when it asked to reboot, powered the machine off and booted up a DOS floppy instead. autoexec.bat and config.sys were completely empty - 0 bytes each, and "edit" confirmed that. Additionally, in C:/Windows there was no mscdex or oakcdrom even though the floppy disk uses oakcdrom to load the initial setup.

So I wonder if they changed it in 98 so that the CD drivers were integrated on a core level opposed to relying on DOS for them?

What I find very odd, on top of all this - is that if I simply cancel 95's prompts for the CAB files (obviously it'll just not install whatever drivers it's trying to install) and finish the setup, after it reboots my CD drive magically shows up again! So I'm thinking 95 has the drivers built in as well, it's just that first-boot menu that doesn't. Am I correct in thinking that?
And if so, maybe it would even be useful to copy the CD driver to a temp directory, have it do the first-boot stuff, then REMOVE the CD drivers so it's as "vanilla" as possible, since you wouldn't actually need those again after the OS is installed.

[win98]

I had a setup boot floppy with it that was home made - presumably the first time the computer was started or when it was getting setup as it was my parents machine and I remember it was hand labelled but said floppy is long gone in that it might still be here but I think it stopped being readable and I haven't seen it in 5+ years. IIRC though it would boot 95 DOS, load CD drivers and then come up with some message about "warning this computer may not be Setup to use the CD ROM if you are unsure what to do or it doesn't work contact your pc manufacturer" press enter to continue which probably was to cover CD drives that didn't work with generic drivers.

Pressing enter would start setup and the welcome to Setup screen would be text based instead of the normal GUI which was then followed by scandisk and then you would be brought to the license agreement in the GUI. - Scandisk normally runs before you get Welcome to Windows 95 Setup as it is normally shown as the first GUI screen in my experience. The floppy in question did not use OAK CDROM either as far as I can remember it was another generic CD Driver. (This was years ago so I cannot for the life of me remember which one). My CD also has the file copy error on first boot because it can't access the CD drive to copy some files.

Edit - I once got a machine when I was much younger, that came with no 95CD but which had a 95 COA and a official microsoft setup boot floppy with worked the same as the one I mentioned above, although the HDD was blank so there was no way of telling what OS the machine had originally installed although I think OSR2x keys are somewhat interchangeable between the three versions.

Offtopic Comment

The second machine referred to above (not my parents one) came with a bag of manuals and stuff (since thrown out as I was too young to appreciate it) which included Windows 3.1 floppies branded by some weird OEM I can't remember the name of and missing the printer disk 7 but no DOS disks so they can't of been for the same machine. It also came with the machines original quote from the dealer as it was a small shop and I think I saved this in a box somewhere. I would investigate the 3.1 floppies further even though they aren't related to this discussion on 95 if I still had them but I ruined the Windows 3.1 floppies trying to compress the setup onto less disks or something monumentally stupid like around the time I got the machine in 2004.

[drfsupercenter]

OK, so I tried doing what was suggested - I manually ran the setup program, then after it asked to reboot I booted it from a DOS floppy disk and copied the OAKCDROM.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE files to drive C - created an autoexec.bat and config.sys (as there wasn't one at that point!) and then rebooted normally. Still no CD drive.

[WinPC]

OK, so I tried doing what was suggested - I manually ran the setup program, then after it asked to reboot I booted it from a DOS floppy disk and copied the OAKCDROM.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE files to drive C - created an autoexec.bat and config.sys (as there wasn't one at that point!) and then rebooted normally. Still no CD drive.

Did you try booting to the MS-DOS command prompt, just to see if the CD-ROM drivers load? Also, are you sure that you placed "DEVICE=C:\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001" in CONFIG.SYS and "C:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001" in AUTOEXEC.BAT and that you didn't accidentally reverse them?

If neither works, and you can't access the CD-ROM from the Windows 95 Startup Disk even when copying the CD-ROM driver files manually, then what you most likely have is an SCSI CD-ROM drive. You can usually test for this using the Windows 98 Startup Disk, since that includes SCSI CD-ROM drivers. If you can access the CD-ROM from there, then you will need to use a different CD-ROM driver for your experiment.

[drfsupercenter]

Hm, I tried it again and it seemed to work.

The setup comments out the autoexec file anyway after it's fully set up. So I went ahead and deleted it once it loaded the rest of the drivers. I'm not sure if there's a way to do that automatically after it installs or something.

Also I notice it didn't install IE4 like it was supposed to. It still has version 3.0.

[WinPC]

Hm, I tried it again and it seemed to work.

The setup comments out the autoexec file anyway after it's fully set up. So I went ahead and deleted it once it loaded the rest of the drivers. I'm not sure if there's a way to do that automatically after it installs or something.

Also I notice it didn't install IE4 like it was supposed to. It still has version 3.0.

Did you download the copy that was already available on the FTP server here?

Also, the reason why Windows 95 Setup loads Internet Explorer 4.0 Setup automatically when installing Windows 95 OSR 2.5 is because of how it copies over a version of IE4SETUP.EXE which is renamed to WELCOME.EXE (so that Windows 95 Setup copies it automatically during Setup and even executes it after the first portion of Setup), and which is presented to the user as being an extra stage of Windows 95 Setup.